Messages - Maddie

maddie, i can sympathize. i've been living with my parents for the last two months too! painful at times... i've been avoiding them by spending all my free time exercising and going out drinking. i've managed to lose 13 lbs.-- all while drinking 4-5 nights a week.

that said, now that it's time to leave my parents' place, there is some sick and twisted part of me that is going to miss it!

I know how you feel. My parents don't really care what I do, so for right now it's a decent feeling to be responsibility-free. It will be ending just in time though!!!

I'm tired of these fuxin threads! Get over it people, AA is here, URM's will continue to benefit. Blame your forefathers, not us.

I don't think anyone was blaming URMs for taking advantage of a system that is in place to benefit them. It would be pointless not to take advantage of everything you can in a very competitive process. But it's also not an entitlement. You may be sick of these threads, but some people are sick of AA, so they have a right to discuss it.

The real question is who does it hurt? It only hurts, individually, applicants at the margins who instead of going to HLS have to go to CLS. People displaced by AA aren't objectively qualified to be at that school anyways. The school would have to find some non-numerical justification to admit them as well. What's wrong with giving some person who hasn't had access to opportunity or is part of an unrepresented group a chance? You're both unqualified numerically. Or is it that you're angry because you're not qualified numerically and someone even less numerically qualified gets in over you? At that point, tough luck. I mean, there are numerically unqualified white students at even Harvard and Yale.

You see, this is actually the best point I have seen anyone make in awhile about AA (which I am against, for the record.) The vast majority of the time, it is not so much that a numerically qualified person is displaced, it's that a numerically unqualified non-URM gets rejected and an equal or less numerically qualified URM does get in. It does make for a weak argument, but you can't blame the people who get lost in the shuffle for feeling indignant about it. If you are an extremely rich or well-connected white person, you can get into HYS if you are unqualified. If you are a numerically under-qualified URM, you can get into schools well above the range of a typical applicant with your numbers. This leaves a group of people that have to hope they can write a diversity statement good enough to get them a second look and I am fairly certain these things get thrown in the trash, figuratively speaking. Schools like numbers, money and statistics. There will always be anecdotal exceptions people can point to, but overall this is the reality.

I have always said that I would be fine with race-blind, income based affirmative action, but I am not optimistic about that becoming the norm.

Well I'm going to school in Philly which is why I have researched the market a bit.

I actually kind of like it. The nice part is like a condensed version of New York, but less pretentious. (I'm from NY originally... love it, but it can be a bit pretentious.)

I'm from NY too...and yea, it could be pretentious, but I love NYC. Plus, there are just more firms here and more practice areas to get into (especially for me, since I have lofty dreams of doing some type of Entertainment law ---though not straight out of ls)

I love NYC, point by point I prefer it to Philly by far for the long term. My *hope* is that it was the just-out-of-college scene that was the problem. I found it dominated by first year analysts who think they own the world. Having dated one of those, I had my fill of that scene.

But there is definitely a greater diversity in terms of practice areas. And better Asian food.

Also, I would love to hear some discussion of BigLaw salaries in Chicago.

Don't most Chi firms pay market (ie 160k) in Chi? And, they have a lower COL than NY and homes are more afordable.

Yeah, Chicago or DC seem like they pay the same as NYC but are much cheaper. What about Philly firms? Philly's COL seems pretty cheap.

Philly Biglaw does not pay 160K... I think it is a 135-145K range. I have looked at the Philly firms on the NALP site and that's what it appears. COL in Philly is amazingly low though, compared to NY and even to Boston and DC.

For me it's more like...finally! This summer has been rather long and boring.

Cosigned.

Agreed. I've been living with my parents for the past two months after two years of living on my own out of college. My lease ended early. Believe it or not, I will miss my parents! But another big concern now is living like a student again after two years with a full time job! No more shopping!